by Robin Hobb
Per had piled fruit onto a square of canvas. He bagged it up and said, ‘That’s it. Ready to go.’
‘I’m taking nothing from here,’ Spark said.
Beloved looked at me. I shrugged. ‘Nothing. Taking nothing. Leaving everything.’
‘I know he’s dead,’ he admitted brokenly. He finally turned toward me. The rims all around his pale eyes were red. There were deep lines around his mouth. He looked at me. ‘You are all I have left of him now.’
I spoke very quietly. ‘Then you have nothing at all.’
FORTY
* * *
Warm Water
Battle death to your last breath and even unknown, you are a hero.
Whimper your way into darkness and your name will become a taunt of cowardice.
Chalcedean saying
Dying is boring, Nighteyes observed.
I drew a deeper breath. ‘Perhaps you are not taking it as personally as I am.’ My voice sounded strange to me. Water had risen in the chamber and I had wondered if I would drown, trapped on my back with my head lower than my hips and my legs pinned between stone and stone. It was among the worst deaths I could have imagined for myself, but it had not even wet my hair. If it had come that high, I probably would have drunk some of it. Saltwater or not, I was so thirsty.
The water was retreating now. The high tide had not reached me. This time. Perhaps the next tide would reach higher. I would almost welcome it, I decided. I had never expected to awaken in my body again, never expected to endure physical discomfort again. Now it seemed unfair that the pain from my trapped legs was not enough to drive hunger and thirst from my thoughts. I wrapped my arms around my body. I was cold. Not the cold that kills, but the cold that makes one stiff and miserable.
Your death is personal, Little Brother. When you go, so do I.
You should have stayed with Bee.
All the same. When you perish, I go, too.
The blackness was absolute. Either I was blind or no light reached this chamber. Likely both were true, but I didn’t regret giving the Fool my strength and my eyes. I hoped it had been enough to get them out of this tunnel and back to Paragon. I hoped they had boarded the ship, hoisted anchor and dropped sail and fled without another thought for me.
I tried again to move. The edges of the stone steps dug into my hips, the middle of my back and my shoulders. Cold and hard. The sword slash still hurt, and the back of my neck itched maddeningly. I scratched it again. It was the only discomfort I could do anything about.
So the plan is to lie here until we die?
It’s not a plan, Nighteyes. It’s inevitable.
I thought you were more of a wolf than that.
That stung. I scowled and spoke aloud into the darkness. ‘Give me a better plan, then.’
Make up your mind. Is Death a friend? Then go joyfully to hunt with it, as I did. If it’s an enemy, then fight it. But don’t sag here like a wounded cow waiting for predators to finish it off. You are not prey, nor I! If we must die, let us die as wolves!
What would you have me do? Chew off my legs?
A brief silence. Then, Could you do that?
I don’t bend that way, my teeth are wrong, and I’d likely bleed to death before I escaped.
Then why did you suggest it?
I was being sarcastic.
Oh. Bee was not sarcastic. I enjoyed that about her.
Tell me of your time with her.
A longer pause in his thoughts. Then, No. Fight your way out of this and live, and perhaps she will tell you herself. I am not going to share tales of her hardship while you lie here and moan like a wounded sow.
Her hardship. How bad was it?
Bad enough.
His rebuke stung in a way that only his disdain of me had ever achieved. I tried again to shift my legs. Useless. The fallen beam pinned me just above the knees. I could not get any leverage. I tried to remember if I’d had a long knife in my pack. The wolf was right about that aspect of my predicament. I did not want to linger like this. Would I go so far as to sever my legs to escape? A ridiculous idea. My knife would never go through leg bones. Was the ship’s hatchet in my bag?
I groped for my pack. I’d had it slung over my shoulder before the blast flung me down the steps. It was gone. My groping fingers found only loose gravel and rubble. And standing water if I stretched my arms as far as I could past my head. I paddled my fingers in the water and then wiped grit and dust from my face with my wet hand. The warm water felt good. I reached my hand into it again and trailed my chilled fingers in it.
Warm water. Warm water?
I froze.
In my experience, two things gave off warmth: living creatures and fire. My Wit told me there were no other living creatures in my vicinity. A fire in water was not possible. For a single, chilling moment, I recalled that Forged people were invisible to my Wit, yet alive and giving off warmth. But I had not encountered a Forged one in decades, not since the Red-Ship Raiders had created them during our war with the OutIslanders.
We found that hot spring, once.
It stank. I smell nothing.
Nor I.
I opened my eyes wide and strained to see something, anything. But still there was nothing. I firmed my will to iron and reached out again, groping. The water was definitely warmer. I strained my arms in that direction as far as I could. I felt the slash in my leg straining with my reaching. Warmer yet. My fingertips brushed something I recognized at once. The side of my pack. Just a little more. I strained, dragged my fingertips down the sturdy fabric, seeking something to grip. Instead, I felt it overbalance and slip away from me. With a muffled ‘tunk’ it fell down one step. Hopelessly out of my reach now.
And that sound, the noise of something solid and dense made me recall what had weighted my pack. One of Chade’s firepots was in there. With the heavy tube of dragon-Silver.
And the Elderling fire-brick.
I wondered which side of the brick was now up. I wondered if Chade’s firepot could explode under water. The brick could not set fire to it. Was mere heat enough to set it off?
What happened to dragon-Silver when it was heated?
Probably nothing.
Some time passed. A lot of time, or a little time. In the dark, degrees of pain, hunger and thirst were more potent measures than time. Occasionally I shifted, to put the pressure of the edges of the steps in different uncomfortable parts of my body. I scratched my neck where it itched. I crossed my arms on my chest; I uncrossed my arms. I thought of Bee, of the Fool. Had they escaped? Had they reached the ship safely? Perhaps they were even now on their way home. I yearned after them, and then rebuked myself. I did not want them here in the dark with me. Much as I might claim to disbelieve the Fool’s dream, his prediction had been too powerful. I thought of Bee’s illustration in her book. The blue buck stood on one pan of the scale, the tiny bee on the other. And below it, in her careful script, the words of the red-toothed woman were written. ‘A worthy exchange.’
It was.
My thoughts wandered. I hoped Nettle’s child was growing well. Riddle would be a good father. I hoped Lant and Spark and Per would understand my decision. I thought of Molly and wished I could have died in bed with her beside me.
The Skill was stealing my body’s paltry reserves, trying to heal the broken parts while rebuilding the strength I had pushed into the Fool. But my body had nothing left to fuel a renewal. I felt like a lamp flame dancing on the last of a wick. I wanted to sleep but was too uncomfortable. Eventually, I knew sleep would take me whether I willed it or not. Possibly I was already asleep in this total darkness. Maybe I was already dead.
I preferred the boredom to this self-pity. And the water to the left of you is warmer now. Don’t you smell it, even with your pitiful nose?
I reached over my head and as far to the left as I could in the darkness. My hand touched water. And it was much warmer than standing water inside a dank tunnel should have been. I strained again, reaching, and
the water grew surprisingly hot. The fire-brick was a powerful magic.
As I drew my hand back, my pack exploded.
I was not completely blind, for I knew an instant of gleaming silver light. Water splashed over me, hot enough to scald. I tried to wipe it from my face but it clung, searing and burning, to both my hands and to my face; it was not water. It sank into me like liquid poured into dry sand, permeating me. And my body sucked it in as if it had always craved this magical stuff. One side of my face, my chest and left arm and both hands it coated, and then it spread as if it were something alive, seeking to envelop me. I screamed, but not in pain. It was an ecstasy too large for my body to contain. Four times I gave voice to an experience no human was ever meant to have. Then I lay back, panting and weeping. I could feel it soaking and changing me. Claiming and trapping me.
I tried again to wipe it from my eyes. It had gone into my mouth when I screamed and up my nose. The burning pleasure of it was so excruciating that it was a new kind of pain. I rubbed my eyes and tried to blink it away and saw instead a new world in the dark cavern. The gleaming splashes of Silver that had erupted had spattered the fallen stonework that pinned me. I also understood what the Fool had tried to explain to me back in Buckkeep Castle when he spoke of seeing as a dragon might. I saw warmth, on the spattered silver and splashed water. I watched it fade as the water cooled.
Darkness flowed back in around me. The Silver continued to explore me. I lay still, beyond pleasure, beyond pain. Beyond time. I closed my eyes. I let go.
Fitz. Do something.
I realized I was still breathing. And with that thought, awareness of my body triggered a rush of all the pains. ‘Do what?’ I spoke the words in a dry whisper.
Verity shaped stone with his silvered hands. The Scentless One shaped wood with his silvered fingertips.
Oh.
With the tips of my fingers, I explored the fallen beam that trapped my legs. I stroked it. No change that I could feel. I scratched at it with my nails. Splinters under my nails. Not pleasant. I smoothed it with my fingertips.
I do not know how long it took me to master the process. It was not a physical digging away that was needed, but a persuasion of the wood. I did not compress it with the strength of my hands, nor shear it away, but I came to know the fallen beam very well indeed.
It was a physical feat to tighten my belly muscles and curl up enough to reach under the pinning wood. Too often I had to lie back and gather myself again. Silver was not food and water. It gave me strength, but still my body was hungry and thirsty. And so very tired.
When my second leg was finally freed, the incredible pain of its reawakening left me weeping and shouting. I slid my body down the stone steps and into shallow water and wallowed about until my head was finally higher than my torso. I crawled up onto fallen debris. I think I fell unconscious for a time. When I awoke, the water had receded slightly. I could not stand, and even sitting was a weariness. I decided I would sleep for a time longer.
No. You can sleep after you have seen the sky again. Up, Fitz. Up and walk. You cannot rest yet.
It was not my human will but the wolf in me that made me struggle to rise. My feet were distant and painful things. There were deep bruises across my legs. The flesh had been compacted and crushed. I could feel that with my fingers, as well as the ragged edge of the sword slash. I was glad I could not see my legs save as warm shapes. My initial progress was a series of stagger, fall, crawl, rest, stand, stagger, fall. The steps went down forever, and every lurch down was a torment. The fall took me into shallow, briny water. I moved through utter darkness. When my groping hands found a section of wall that seemed less damaged by Spark’s blast, I followed along it. Barnacles on the wall and floor cut my flesh. I stupidly realized I was barefoot. When had I lost my boots? The blast had torn my clothes, but my boots? I pushed that aside. It was only pain and it did not last long. The steps down seemed endless. I was grateful that the water was gradually receding. I do not think I could have forced my way past its resistance. When the steps finally ended and I sloshed through standing water to my knees, I became aware of a different sort of pain.
It was not just the Skill forcing the healing of my legs. When I touched the sword slash, silver fingers to Silver-splashed wound, I felt as if I had been patched, like a leather jerkin mended with canvas. It did not feel like my own flesh, but there was no stopping it. I might be able to persuade stone to move and free me, but my own body had a peculiar will of its own.
Onward. I had to catch up with the others. The Fool would believe I was dead. That was what he would tell them! My poor little girl! I could not blame him. I had thought myself dead.
You would have been, if I had not held back some life for us. For me. For you. Mostly for the cub. You must stop taking foolish risks. We need to survive.
How long had I been trapped underground? A tide had been rising when the others fled. It had fallen, risen again, and now was ebbing I judged. A day gone, at least. Possibly two. I wondered where Bee and the others might be right now. Had they escaped? Were they even now at sea on Paragon, sailing away from this horrid place, toward home and family?
I tried to Skill to Bee. I had as little success as I always did when I reached for her. Trying to Skill through the pain and the peculiar Silver sensations was like trying to shout when one is breathless and running. I gave it up and trudged on. Catch up with them.
Had they encountered the Servants’ guardsmen? Had the fleeing Whites we freed betrayed them? Had they fought and won, or fallen? Had they been taken prisoner? Whenever I wanted to stop and rest I flogged myself with those thoughts and pushed on. I came to steps. I climbed them.
Blackness became dark grey and then a paler grey. I pushed on toward a paler shape of light interrupted by lines and … It was a partly open door, overgrown by vegetation. I could barely push past the tangled greenery. Brambles tore at my frayed clothing and skin as I thrust thorny vines aside until I emerged from the hillside thicket and stood under a clear blue sky. The grass was taller than my knees and mixed with twiggy brush.
I collapsed and sat where I was, heedless of the protest of the sword-slash across my thigh. I dared myself to look at it. It was sealed with Silver as if I’d patched myself with tar. I prodded it and winced. Under the patch, my body toiled on with its repairs. My vision was marginally clearer. My palms were silver. I stared at them. My hands were skeletal, bones and bulging veins and tendons. All gleaming as if cast in Silver. I’d eaten myself to make repairs. My clothing hung on me.
I rose and tried to walk on. The ground was uneven and tufts of grass caught at my dragging feet. I stepped on a flattened thistle and fell over. It was hard to see the tiny pale thorns I picked out of the sole of my bony foot with my silver fingers. I could feel what I could not see, the Silver giving me a sensitivity that my hands had never possessed. I looked at my hands in the sunlight. They glittered, gleaming and bright. It was either more Silver than Verity had ever possessed or a much finer quality than he had used. The coating on Verity’s hands had reminded me of thick mud; mine looked as if I wore elegant silver gloves that clung to every line and fold of my hands. I reinspected the places where the Silver had struck. Had the blast so shredded my clothing or had the Silver splashed and eaten it? Silver gleamed on part of my chest, in splotches on my legs. I knew it coated more than half my face. I wondered what it looked like. My eyes? I pushed the thought away.
Straggling among the grass were long, crawling threads of clover, both leaves and purple blossoms. Molly had used the flowers to flavour warmed honey and teas. I gathered a handful and put them in my mouth. A faint trace of sweetness and moisture. They helped but not enough.
I managed to stagger upright and stood unsteady on my feet, trying to decide where I was. I was on one of the rolling hills behind the town, I thought. Below me were the ruins of Clerres Castle. I stared. It was castle no longer, but only mounded rubble scattered across the end of the peninsula. Bee’s fire had not don
e that. A slow recognition worked into me. The dragons had come. Heeby and Tintaglia. This was the vengeance they had said they would take. Men would have needed months to topple this stronghold so thoroughly, and men tended to keep and exploit what they conquered. Dragon-acid had eaten the walls, melting stone and dissolving wood. It looked like a dropped cake. I saw two figures moving over the rubble and spotted another man along the shore, pushing a barrow down what had been the road. It was littered with the wreckage of the buildings that had lined it. So few people. I wondered how many were buried under the falling rubble. Were my people among them? Where was Paragon?
Not in the harbour, nor anchored outside it. Paragon was gone. There were no large ships there. Not one. No barrows full of goods moved on the docks, no one strolled the streets of the markets and warehouse areas. All the structures lacked roofs and the walls leaned drunkenly against each other. There was, however, plenty of wreckage sloshing around the pilings of the docks, and many masts of smaller vessels sticking up above the retreating waves.
In the distant sky, something sparkled. Wings of red and blue. Tintaglia and Heeby, finished with their destruction and winging home. And beneath them, a sailing ship. Paragon? I dared to hope. But it was leaving. Leaving me here.
At the edge of the harbour below, a ship was putting on sail. I stared at her. No mistaking that stern and house. It was the liveship Vivacia. Departing. Without me.
‘Bee!’ I shouted her name, and then, ‘Fool! Don’t go! Wait!’ Stupid. Stupid, stupid. I drew a deep breath, gathered my strength and reached out with the Skill. Bee! Bee, tell them you hear me, tell them to turn back. I’m here, come back! I felt no sense of her, not even the rush and rip of the Skill-current. Was my magic as damaged as the rest of me? I tried again, pushing hard, wordlessly trying for a touch.
A wave of vertigo sat me down on the grassy turf. Had she heard me? Were her walls up? I watched the ship, hoping to see the sails change, to see it tack and turn. Was she even on the ship?